NewsBusters' Sheppard Upset At Leno for Making A Fox News JokeTopic: NewsBusters

NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard has a love-hate relationship with Jay Leno, which generally pivots on who Leno is telling jokes about on a given night. The pendulum has swung toward hate yet again in a Nov. 30 NewsBusters post complaining that Leno asked Newt Gingrich if his prediction that Mitt Romney would win the election was based on whether he was "just watching Fox News." Sheppard indignantly replied:

Although Leno and his audience obviously thought this was a hoot, folks like Peggy Noonan - who regularly appears on NBC - and ABC's George Will also predicted Romney was going to win.

As such, this belief was hardly exclusive to one television network.

As for the ideological extremes of Fox and MSNBC, I'd be glad to sit down with Leno and explain the vast differences between these two news organizations.

His people should call my people.

When you're as far right as Sheppard is, everything that doesn't have the conservative bias that Fox does automatically has a "liberal bias," and an actually liberal-leaning network like MSNBC might has well be broadcasting from the Soviet Union.

That, we suspect, would be the gist of Sheppard's explanation of the "vast differences" between the two, on the off-chance Leno takes him up on his offer.

Drew Zahn begins his Nov. 25 WorldNetDaily review of the remake of the film "Red Dawn" with a defense of its plot from "obviously liberal critics":

Out of curiosity, I took a look at how film critics from other newspapers and publications reviewed the new “Red Dawn,” a remake of the 1984 cult classic about teenagers taking up guns and defending America from communist invaders.

You’d think from the critics’ condescending sneers that the remake is utter garbage.

“Preposterous,” said one critic of the remake’s premise that North Korea could invade the U.S. today. “Outdated,” said another, suggesting the plot line be relegated to the ancient Cold War and the once-upon-a-time Red Scare.

The only thing that’s “preposterous,” however, is the speed at which these obviously liberal critics leaped to dismiss the movie. I honestly, without hyperbole, wonder if some of them even watched it.

For starters, the movie explains that North Korea doesn’t invade without “help,” and that they used a cyber attack on the American financial system and an electromagnetic pulse weapon, or EMP, against the U.S. infrastructure. Furthermore, North Korea only invades the Pacific Northwest, while other enemies attack elsewhere. It’s not really that implausible.

Besides, the original film cast Cuba as the invading force – not the Soviet Union, as is commonly reported – so don’t talk to me about “preposterous.”

And as for “outdated,” the Red Scare is far from over, as many Americans outside the leftist worldview recognize. It’s just that the threat of communism in the U.S. now comes from our own public universities, instead of Moscow.

So politically biased bashing aside, let’s look at the film a little more honestly, shall we?

It appears Zahn wants us to believe that his "Red Dawn" review isn't driven by political bias and is more "honest" than what those liberals say. But from his communist fearmongering to warnings of EMP attacks, he's regurgitating what he reads at his employer's website, which nobody can plausibly say lacks political bias.

He's such a screaming fanboy of this film -- he even defends the dialogue, which "sounds like Cold War drivel at patriotic platitudes to a leftist, but it’s downright inspirational to the rest of us – those of us who don’t think of George Washington simply as an imperialistic slave-owner or Ronald Reagan as a rich-loving, trickle-down oligarch" -- he ends his review with: "Allow me to join the chorus of cheers: 'Wolverines!!!!!'"

Of course, Zahn's reviews have always stemmed from a distinctly right-wing viewpoint: he hated the Disney film "Tangled" because it taught children to think for themselves, one film "review" was largely an attack on Darwinism, and he turned another review into an anti-Obama rant (and used his review of a Transformers" film to opine that Obama is a Decepticon).

CNS Falsely Suggests Illegal Immigrants Are To Blame For High UnemploymentTopic: CNSNews.com

A Nov. 29 CNSNews.com article by editor in chief Terry Jeffrey carries the headline "Calif., Ariz. Border Towns Have Nation’s Highest Unemployment: Over 28%." The article is accompanied by, and promoted on CNS' front page with, this image of a truck that got stuck trying to drive over a border fence:

At no point in his article does Jeffreyblame immigrants for the high unemployment rate in these "border towns," which he notes are "are contiguous to one another and to the Mexican border" -- indeed, he doesn't mention immigrants at all. The only relation the photo has to anything Jeffrey wrote is that the incident occured near one of the towns he mentions.

Perhaps Jeffrey used the image to imply that illegal immigrants are to blame for the high unemployment in these areas. But that doesn't appear to be true -- according to the Arizona Department of Commerce, the main reason is Yuma's agricultural workforce. It varies throughout the year, changing with the picking season. When they are off they file unemployment claims, therefore the unemployment rate goes up.

So, basically, Jeffrey is falsely smearing immigrants with a misleading photo. That's hardly ethical behavior for the editor of a "news" organization.

Columnists at WorldNetDaily have some serious contempt for anyone who doesn't think or behave exactly as they do -- or, worse, voted for President Obama.

Disgraced pitcher John Rocker laments the "devolution of American culture" in his Nov. 26 WND column, railing against "he overwhelming amount of mindless, despicable garbage that permeates a host of media within our society":

It says a lot about the state of our society as a whole when it takes at least two hands to list all of the female TV “stars” who have reached their talentless fame through the exploitation of “accidentally” leaked homemade sex tapes. Many of these individuals who now have every waking moment of their disgusting lives displayed for our entertainment have become major influences on the mentality and integrity of many in this country. They have clothing lines, shoe lines and fragrance brands that are all promoted by displaying night after night the glorified train wreck that is their reality. And what’s most disturbing is that an overwhelming number in our culture lap up this inane nonsense with a rabid lust while possessing a never-ending craving for more.

Unfortunately, it’s more than just these useless reality TV dolts and their hideous lives that are slowly eroding the fabric of our society’s integrity. Arenas such as professional athletics and music through which Americans create other influential “heroes” are also more times than not extremely poor examples of strong character for society’s observation. As consistent as the sunrise, it’s seemingly a daily occurrence to witness a revered athlete or musician in all of his tattooed/graffitied glory with a fresh set of gold teeth and prisonesque clothing being arrested for one thing or another or perhaps proudly speaking of his multitude of illegitimate children. (FYI: When you see an individual wearing his pants so low his filthy underwear is showing, he is mimicking prison attire. When one goes to prison, there are no belts for several reasons. In addition, the inmates must eat less-than-par prison food, thereby losing weight. Hence, sagging pants. Nice role models.)

Rocker, of course, has a long history of hating people who aren't like him.

Craige McMillan, meanwhile, takes particular aim at those who voted for Obama as inbred idiots in his Nov. 28 column:

Since our culture has become a secular culture, most of us have focused on Romney’s “47 percent” and the impact that holds for our nation. To twist it into what passes for modern Christian theology, we might say that the 47 percent now believe that it is more blessed to receive than to give. Praise government, from whom all blessings flow. And pass the rich fatted taxpayer; it’s time for another bag of chips while I watch reality TV.

The people who have traditionally been smart enough to know this doesn’t work, America’s up and coming leaders, seem to have missed those classes in college. Perhaps they were too busy enjoying the enforced coed dorms and subsidized abortions at our nation’s most prestigious educational establishments. Or maybe the inbreeding that occurred over the last few generations has dumbed down even the elites to the point where historical tragedy seems like a bright new idea to launch a career in government.

And don't forget the gays!

Now the 2 percent have begun to succeed at changing “seasons and law” by ushering in homosexual “marriage.” And as nice as Adam and Steve may be as dinnertime conversationalists, they still require the intervention of a female body to complete their “family” and perpetuate the next generation. So look for laws giving homosexuals affirmative action style priority in adoptions. The child, once again, has no choice.

The 47 percent (plus this 2 percent) really do hope to change seasons and law. Both are at war with God. And for a time, they will succeed. But in the process the house divided becomes the house with its foundation built on the shifting sands of popular opinion. And when the storm comes, great will be the fall of it.

Notice the caricature of the divine even by those who self-identify as being at war with God:

“Boys (lads), it is the last time (hour, the end of this age). And as you have heard that the antichrist [he who will oppose Christ in the guise of Christ] is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen, which confirms our belief that it is the final (the end) time” (1 John 2:18 Amplified Bible).

As the left’s statist European castles crumble before us, the leftists are busy here in America, changing seasons and laws. Once we have world government, it will all work out, don’t you know. But the laws of economics, physics and God’s laws can’t be changed by humanity, no matter how noble the cause. The result will always end in tears for the multitudes. From the tears their stupidity will not protect them.

Wow, talk about bitter. But this is all in line with the increasingly bitter and angry Obama-hate spouted by WND's editor, Joseph Farah.

When Rush Limbaugh went on a three-day tirade of misogyny against Sandra Fluke for talking about birth control in public -- calling her a "slut and a "prostitue," among other vile things -- the employees of the Media Research Center not only failed to find it offensive (MRC chief Brent Bozell led by example on the chickening-out path), some heartily cheered on Limbaugh's sleazy insults.

Now that Fluke is in the news again for being a nominee for Time magazine's person of the year, it's time for the insults to fly again at the MRC.

A Nov. 28 NewsBusters post by Randy Hall uses "Condom Rights Activist" to describe Fluke in his headline, falsely portraying it as being used by Time. In fact, Hall uses his post to lovingly curate a series of right-wing smears and insults of Fluke. For example, he makes sure to include an attack from the anti-abortion website LifeNews -- "Fluke is apparently unable to figure out how to purchase low-cost birth control from places like Target, Walmart or her local pharmacy" -- as well as a post from right-wing blogger Jim Hoft likening Fluke to Adolf Hitler.

Neither Hall nor Wilmouth criticized any of the comments they forwarded, which must mean they approve of the hate hurled Fluke's way -- so much so that they felt they needed to archive it for future generations.

Speaking of hate, the MRC's resident misogynist Matt Philbin -- he has previously denigrated Fluke as a "horizontal laborer" who wants to "sleep around w/impunity" and expressed a desire to "a big Costco-sized box of condoms" -- continued to exhibit his trademark jerkass behavior, writing in a Twitter post: "Feds Spend $100K teaching teen girls "condom negotiation." Just send Sandra Fluke."

Two years ago, as WND reported, the Obama administration was proceeding with a novel way to finance trillion-dollar budget deficits by forcing IRA and 401(k) holders to buy Treasury bonds by mandating the placement of government-structured annuities in their retirement accounts.

Remarkably, those financial professionals specializing in private retirement savings and the U.S. citizens investing in private retirement plans now face the possibility the Obama administration and its allies on the political left will impose rules and regulations that effectively abolish the private retirement savings and investment markets.

Recent evidence suggests government officials continue to eye the multi-trillion dollar private retirement savings market, including IRAs and 401(k) plans, eyeing the opportunity to redistribute private retirement savings to less affluent Americans and to force the retirement savings out of the private market and into government-controlled programs investing in government-issued debt.

Well, Obama didn't "want your 401(k)" then, and he doesn't now.

As Media Matters reported back in 2010, when this bogus story first surfaced, Obama never proposed to move private retirement accounts to a government-run system. What Corsi is fearmongering about is discussions over ways to promote annuities sold on the private market as a voluntary alternative to lump-sum cash payments in retirement.

There's no evidence that the governement would "force" Americans into such a program, as Corsi claims. Corsi also offers no evidence that any such proposal has progressed any further than it had in 2010.

Cliff Kincaid's Nov. 26 Accuracy in Media column is headlined "Where the Conservative Media Went Wrong," despite the fact that he doesn't really answer the question. Instead, he complains that Mitt Romney wasn't conservative enough -- or, more to the point, that he didn't hate gays enough. The closest Kincaid gets to answering his headline question is noting that the election "was a disaster in the making that many prominent conservatives in the media did not see coming. Some still do not want to grasp the magnitude of the defeat."

In other words: Conservatives bought their own BS and put defeating Obama at all costs -- a mindset AIM completely bought into with its silly anti-Obama "Day of Truth" featuring people not known for telling it -- ahead of putting up a candidate that could win. Why doesn't Kincaid say that? We have no idea; perhaps he's unwilling to admit his own role in a conservative media that went wrong.

Kincaid also complains:

Bombarded with messages from the Obama campaign and the Soros-funded propaganda machine, including the Super PACs he funded, voters found Romney’s private sector experience on Wall Street and wealth more objectionable than Obama’s record as a Marxist president.

Just one problem with that: George Soros didn't spend all that much money on the 2012 election, compared with certain right-wing billionaires.

So far in 2012, his single largest contribution has been $1 million to American Bridge 21st Century PAC, a Super PAC run by Media Matters founder David Brock, which primarily focuses on opposition research. According to a review of data from the Center for Responsive Politics, Soros' contribution comprises about 12% of the organization's contributions. He also gave $1 million to America Votes, which does not endorse candidates.

Besides that, Soros gave $175,000 to House Majority PAC and $100,000 to Majority PAC. He's also given $55,500 to various individual campaigns and PACs.

That's way down from his donations in 2004, and way lower than the $36.5 million commitment made by Casino Magnate Sheldon Adelson and his family so far, and other Republicans trying to unseat the President.

But blaming Soros is apparently some kind of knee-jerk reflexive action on Kincaid's part, no matter how false it is.

Michael Carl uses a Nov. 25 WorldNetDaily article to praise Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni for "publicly repenting of his personal sin and the sins of the nation" including "idolatry and witchcraft" and "sins of sexual immorality, drunkenness and debauchery; sins of unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred and revenge," then, according to Carl, "dedicated Uganda to God."

But Carl glosses over Ugandan proposal to perpetuate some of those sins, particularly the ones of "unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred and revenge."

Like the proposed anti-gay law that would permit the death penalty for mere homosexuality. WND has largely ignored the death penalty provision, while WND videographer Molotov Mitchell has endorsed the law.

Carl goes on to mislead about the proposed law wshile bringing anti-gay activist Scott Lively to comment on it:

Lively added that Museveni is definitely drawing a contrast between Uganda and the West.

“This incident is also important as a contrast to the picture being painted of Uganda by the godless left of a backwards, violent and savage culture intent on murdering homosexuals,” Lively said.

“On the contrary, Museveni is calmly and confidently setting the course of his nation by the guidance of the Bible, in a way that also shows great courage and resolve,” Lively said.

Homosexual activist groups have criticized the government of Uganda and Museveni for passing laws criminalizing homosexual behavior. A current bill before the Ugandan Parliament increases the jail sentences for homosexual acts and includes criminal penalties for those who encourage or promote homosexuality.

The bill had included the death penalty for those who commit multiple acts of homosexual behavior, but the provision has been removed, BBC News reports.

First, contrary to Carl's claim the the law is "criminalizing homosexual behavior," homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda; the proposed law ratchets up the penalties to a ludicrously oppressive extent, which include extending the threat of punishment to Ugandans living outside the country, outlawing any homosexual advocacy including advocating repeal of the law, defining "homosexual act" so broadly that just about anyone can be convicted, and violating religious freedom by making officiating a same-sex wedding a crime.

Second, while the BBC did report that the death-penalty provision has been removed, Think Progress points out that the BBC provides no details of how the bill has been allegedly altered, adding that "It is irresponsible to suggest that the death penalty has been removed without a thorough investigation of the bill’s new language."

Carl later quotes Lively as saying that he "supports the nation’s strong stance against homosexual behavior" (but "didn’t agree with the death penalty provision") without mentioning Lively's links to the proposed law. As we've detailed, Lively -- who has used WND to smear gays as "lavender Marxists" and "murderers" -- has been sued by a human-rights group for helping to inspire the law through his visits to Uganda.

Carl apparently did not ask Lively about the proposed bill's other Draconian provisions to see if he approved them, or why Lively feels homosexuals in Uganda (real or suspected) must be punished even harsher than they already are. Since the death penalty provision is the only one Lively has tried to distance himself from, we can assume that he supports the rest of the bill.

Ronald Kessler has yet to say a peep about his prediction of a Mitt Romney landslide since the election results proved him wildly wrong. He will, however, turn back time and engage in some old-school Trump-fluffing, like he did when he was trying to get Donald Trump to run for president.

In his Nov. 26 Newsmax column, Kessler writes: "The Republican Party will continue to lose presidential elections if it comes across as mean-spirited and unwelcoming toward people of color, Donald Trump tells Newsmax."

No, Kessler is not interested in such things. Instead, it's time for some full metal Trump-fluffing:

Looking ahead, Trump says his top-rated NBC show “Celebrity Apprentice” is now shooting its 13th season.

Trump says his Trump National Golf Course on 600 rolling acres along the Potomac River is “by far, the best golf course in the tri-state area.” He bought the historic Old Post Office on prestigious Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to remake it as a luxury hotel, and it doesn’t stop there.

“I just bought the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club and Spa in Jupiter, Fla., which is a phenomenal area,” Trump says.

Regardless of who is president, it will be a good year for Trump. This New Year’s Eve, Donald will be celebrating at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach home and club, which admits Jews and blacks despite the exclusionary policies of some other Palm Beach clubs, as outlined in my book “The Season: Inside Palm Beach and America’s Richest Society.”

The band Party on the Moon kept the Mar-a-Lago pavilion rocking as guests donned party hats they found at their tables. Even Trump’s usually reserved wife Melania, a stunning former model, sported a black paper top hat.

Kessler's not big on getting his facts straight either. Trump did not buy the Old Post Office; the federal government continues to own it, but it selected the Trump Organization to redevelop it in a manner that provides a "consistent stream of revenue for the Federal Government."

Kessler also quotes Trump's top aide in order to portray "the private Donald Trump" as "the dearest, most thoughtful, most loyal, most caring man."

But nobody cares about "the private Donald Trump" -- they want to know about the bitter, hateful Trump we saw in the presidential campaign. But Kessler cares too much about his access to Trump to tell his readers the truth.

In the process, the moderators have blocked from WND forums participants who post abusive language aimed at angering or otherwise insulting forum members, WND authors, management and staff.

Trolls appear to perform a “disinformation” function typical of counter-intelligence efforts by intelligence agencies to confuse political enemies and refute or deflect opposing political views that are less susceptible to refutation by more traditional methods of debate and argumentation.

Typically, trolls operating on WND forums attempt to defend Obama by posting specious and diversionary arguments with the goal of changing the subject and obscuring topics that could damage Obama, such as his birth records, life narrative, political history and policy preferences, including his current positions as president.

Particularly offensive is the proclivity of trolls to use obscene or blasphemous language mixed with personal invective.

And so on. Curiously missing from Corsi's article are any specific, detailed examples of a "troll" operating at WND, only general descriptions of how they purportedly operate, or any direct quotes from any of these "WND Internet forum moderators" explaining its "troll" policy. Instead, Corsi repeats a post from "A person identified as 'AMA' posted a comment on the website Above Top Secret that apparently offers insight into how professional trolls operate."

A confession: We posted on WND threads until we were banned a couple months ago We have repeatedly contacted WND for an explanation for the ban, only to be given either a non-responsive answer or ignored entirely. We made no attempt to hide our identity, nor did we engage in "obscene or blasphemous language," though we did point out that WND was ignoring inconvenient facts about its Obama birther crusade. Perhaps that was the problem.

It seems that WND, in banning purported "trolls," is also trying to keep its readers from learning things it doesn't want them to know.

If anyone at WND would like to explain why we might be wrong about that, they know where to find us.

When Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter author Thomas Ricks pointed out on Fox News that the attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Behghazi, Libya, "has been extremely political, partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party" -- which caused Ricks' interview on Fox to end abruptly -- the Media Research Center, longtimeapologists for Fox News, went into full spin mode.

That resulted in a Nov. 26 NewsBusters post by Jeffrey Mayer that offered his own, um, unique take on the incident:

It’s commonplace for a news organization to be attacked for failing to cover certain major news events. On the other hand, it is rare for a news outlet to be attacked for doing its job and reporting the news.

According to Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Thomas Ricks, Fox News’ extensive reporting on the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi is not only a waste of time but an example of how Fox is, “the wing of the Republican Party.” Appearing on Monday’s Happening Now, Ricks openly called out Fox News for its coverage of what he dismissed as merely a “small firefight.”

The brief segment started off on the wrong foot immediately with Ricks’ first comments being a swipe at Fox News where he claimed, “I think that Benghazi generally was hyped by this network especially.”

Co-host Jon Scott did his best to challenge Ricks assertions by asking him, “when you have four people dead including the first U.S. ambassador in more than 30 years, how do you call that hype?” When Ricks failed to answer Scott’s question and instead repeated his ridiculous assertions, Scott cut the interview short.

Meyer made no effort to explain exactly what was "ridiculous" about what Ricks said. Fox does, in fact, have a long history of being a semi-official mouthpiece for the Republican Party and conservative causes, and it has ceaselessly hyped the supposed "scandal" surrounding the Benghazi attack, pushing numerous falsehoods and distortions in the process.

But Meyer doesn't care about facts. He wasn't done ranting and spinning:

Given that the liberal media has failed to adequately report on the terrorist attack on our Libyan embassy one would expect a well-respected journalist like Thomas Ricks to praise Fox for their coverage. Unfortunately, Ricks decides to not only smear Fox but to classify the terrorist attack as merely a “small firefight” showing the unwillingness of most journalists to objectively cover a major foreign policy failure of the Obama administration.

Again, Meyers fails to disprove Ricks' purported "smear" of Fox. Nor does he consider the possibility that the reason nobody else but Fox is covering this story because Fox is motivated by its right-wing, anti-Obama bias to portray it as a "major foreign policy failure."

WorldNetDaily managing editor David Kupelian complains in a Nov. 26 column that "a great deal of what passes for 'objective reporting' on the economy is little more than “laundered” press releases from the government (and other power players like the Federal Reserve) whose credibility depends on continually deceiving the public."

And how does Kupelian respond to this purported deception? With actual deception.

Let's begin, as Kupelian does, with the unemployment rate. Kupelian uncritically promotes the evidence-free conspiracy theory by Jack Welch and other right-wingers that the October unemployment numbers released by the government were delilbefrately "fudged" to make President Obama look good. Not only does Kupelian bother toreport the lack of truth behind Welch's claim, he tries to reinforce it by ranting about the "real unemployment rate":

OK, time out. Amid all the bickering over whether the “official” unemployment rate is 8.1 percent or 7.8 percent, it’s easy to forget that all these numbers are just a fairy tale created by the government and promoted by the elite media.

As the Washington Post reported, Paul, a popular but long-shot GOP presidential candidate during the primary season, “has long argued that the unemployment figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are inaccurate and that the country has actually been in a depression for the past decade.”

Said Paul: “If you want to really know why the American people feel badly about the economy, it’s that the unemployment rate is escalating. It’s very high. But if you take … the number of people employed, 132 million people, it’s the same number that was employed in the year 2000. There have been no new jobs produced.”

And how does the government arrive at only 8 percent unemployment? Easy, just leave out lots of unemployed people from the calculations.

Let’s break it down. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “In September, 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force.” Even though these individuals “wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months … they were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.” In case you missed that: The government is openly admitting that 2.5 million unemployed Americans were not counted as officially “unemployed.”

That’s just for starters. The government’s “official” unemployment stats also don’t include part-time workers who want and need full-time work. As the PolicyMic.com blog summarized, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 7.8 percent figure “does not include unemployed members of the workforce who are not actively looking for work; nor does it factor in workers with part-time jobs who are seeking full-time employment. When these workers are included, the (U-6) un/underemployment rate for September remained at 14.7 percent as it had been in August.”

In an article titled “The Real Unemployment Rate,” Fox Business News analyst Elizabeth MacDonald does the math and arrives at virtually the same number: 14.5 percent unemployment.

But the idea that the U-6 rate or any number Ron Paul made up is the "real unemployment rate" is simply false. The U-6 rate includes "underemployed" people who have jobs but are looking for better ones, so it's not actually an "unemployment rate" at all.

Kupelian also rants about the Federal Reserve and "fiat money" :

Consider: Most Americans today recognize that the federal government has become a gigantic, malignant cancer. That’s barely a metaphor – government literally has become a parasitic growth on a once-healthy body politic, drawing substance and energy from it, ravaging the healthy “cells” (productive individuals, families and businesses) in order to feed a malignancy so ravenous it threatens the very life of the “host organism,” America.

But all this could not have happened without the “food” of fiat money.

There was a time when the nation had an honest, constitutional monetary system backed by gold and silver. (“No State shall … make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts,” says Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution.) This, all by itself, constituted a massive barrier to the unrestrained growth of government, since one cannot create gold or silver with a printing press.

All that changed in 1913, when under the presidential leadership of progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act. Pushed through on Dec. 23, the night before Christmas Eve, and largely along party lines (only two House Democrats voted nay and none did so in the Senate), Wilson immediately signed it into law.

This was a blatant violation of the Constitution, which specifies in Article I, Section 8 that “The Congress” – not some private banking cartel – “shall have Power … To coin Money, [and] regulate the Value thereof.” From that point, it was all downhill.

For the next two decades, until 1933, Federal Reserve notes were still redeemable in gold and silver, until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlawed private ownership of gold. Between then and 1963, all Federal Reserve notes were redeemable in “lawful money,” which by then meant only silver.

In fact, FDR did not "outlaw private ownership of gold"; his executive order banned the hoarding of gold, which was beleived to be making the Depression worse, and permitted individuals to keep small amounts of gold and gold coins with collectible value.

Kupelian appears to be advocating a return to the gold standard. But some have argued that a rigid gold-standard monetary system in the U.S. would have made the recession even worse because it would have constrained the Federal Reserve from taking the actions it took to rescue the economy.

NEW ARTICLE: Almost (But Not Quite) IndependentTopic: Newsmax
Newsmax's Christopher Ruddy was willing to be critical of Mitt Romney's campaign before and after the election -- but he turned into a Romney shill in the month before Election Day. Read more >>

WND Falsely Portrays Planned Resurrection Film As 'Sequel' To 'Passion of the Christ'Topic: WorldNetDaily

A Nov. 24 WorldNetDaily article carries the headline "'Passion of the Christ' 'sequel' looking for you." In it, Drew Zahn claims that the planned film is "the unofficially dubbed 'sequel' to [Mel] Gibson’s 'The Passion of the Christ.'"

The scare quotes around the word "sequel" hints at what Zahn refuses to directly spell out: The planned film is no "sequel" at all. He provides no evidence that Gibson or anyone else involved with "The Passion of the Christ" has anything whatsoever to do with this film.

The only people dubbing it a "sequel," in fact, are Zahn and those behind the project, led by David Wood,

In fact, Zahn's article is nothing more than a plea for donors to fund the planned film and engage in a weird sort of crowdsourcing that Zahn spins as a "revolutionary approach:

“Normally when you make a movie,” ["Hollywood veteran" David] Wood told WND, “you raise money from your investors, get a script, hire everybody, shoot your movie and then you market it for five to six months before it’s released.”

But the team behind “The Resurrection” is flipping that process on its head, starting with the marketing before a single actor or cameraman or even script is on board.

“God directed us to begin marketing the film now, doing interviews, getting people excited, so that He could start drawing people to the project,” Wood said. “The whole idea was to invite the church around the world to come help us, come pray, come engage, where people could be involved in process.”

The Resurrection Project, therefore, is taking a unique, participatory approach to filming “The Resurrection.” The team is already talking to church and parachurch organizations, investors, Christians in Hollywood, and is now reaching out to the church at large to become what they call “spiritual producers” in the film.

The film’s website explains a spiritual producer is “an individual who has pledged to pray for the Resurrection Project, donated and spread the word (i.e. via Facebook, Twitter, email, word of mouth).”

But more than just looking for prayer partners and investors, the Resurrection Project is inviting the spiritual producers to get involved in the process, including contests for submitting script ideas, helping to select the director and cast, appointing screenwriters and more. They’re even planning an opportunity to win a trip for two to the movie set … in Israel.

Zahn fails to make clear what, exactly, "The Resurrection" would cover, since "The Passion of the Christ" ends with Jesus' resurrection. Zahn also fails to tell us what "Hollywood veteran" David Wood has done before this project.

The important thing, apparently, is that Zahn did falsely link it to another, successul film and included clickable text that states, "Discover how you can get involved in making 'The Resurrection' by clicking here!"

She doesn’t? While the Post noted Murray had the “luck” of "intemperate" Republican gaffes on abortion and rape in the last election cycle, nobody in the media wants to remember Murray’s 2002 whopper praising that humanitarian Osama bin Laden[.]

As we first detailed way back in 2002 , Murray was not "praising" bin Laden; rather, she was trying to draw a contrast over how the U.S. is viewed in the Middle East, explaining (somewhat erroneously) that bin Laden had been "building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that."

Graham cited what his boss, Brent Bozell, "reported at the time," but 1) Bozell does not "report," and 2) he was trying to distract attention away from Trent Lott's remarks about Strom Thurmond.

Graham goes on to whine, "You would be a fool to underestimate how much hot wind that liberal newspapers will blow behind a liberal Democrat like Murray, whose gaffes are rarely acknowledged and never remembered." It's only a gaffe in the minds of rabid, dishonest partisans like Graham who have to distort her words and tell lies about what she actually said in order to force it into a "gaffe."